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"One might equate growing up with a mistrust of words. A mature person trusts his eyes more than his ears. Irrationality often manifests itself in upholding the word against the evidence of the eyes. Children, savages and true believers remember far less what they have seen than what they have heard."
- Eric Hoffer
(1902 - 1983)
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| | Professor and the Madman:
A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary
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| | by Simon Winchester
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ZIN Product Number: 10004062
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| | | |  | | | Product Details
 Format: Hardcover, 256 pages
Edition: 1 ED
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
ISBN: 0060175966
Release Date: Jan 4, 2003
Average Reader Review:   (Based on 4 reviews.)
| |  | | | In Brief
Part homage to the greatest reference work of all time, the Oxford English Dictionary, part mystery, part intellectual history of Victorian England, The Professor and the Madman tells the parallel stories of the dictionary's genius editor and one of his most prolific contributors, an insane American doctor committed to an asylum for murder.
| | | | From The Publisher
The creation of the Oxford English Dictionary began in 1857, took seventy years to complete, drew from tens of thousands of brilliant minds, and organized the sprawling language into 414,825 precise definitions. But hidden within the rituals of its creation is a fascinating and mysterious story - a story of two remarkable men whose strange twenty-year relationship lies at the core of this historic undertaking. Professor James Murray, an astonishingly learned former schoolmaster and bank clerk, was the distinguished editor of the OED project. Dr. William Chester Minor, an American surgeon from New Haven, Connecticut, who had served in the Civil War, was one of thousands of contributors who submitted illustrative quotations of words to be used in the dictionary. But Minor was no ordinary contributor. He was remarkably prolific, sending thousands of neat, handwritten quotations from his home in the small village of Crowthorne, fifty miles from Oxford. On numerous occasions Murray invited Minor to visit Oxford and celebrate his work, but Murray's offer was regularly - and mysteriously - refused. Thus the two men, for two decades, maintained a close relationship only through correspondence. Finally, in 1896, after Minor had sent nearly ten thousand definitions to the dictionary but had still never traveled from his home, a puzzled Murray set out to visit him. It was then that Murray finally learned the truth about Minor - that, in addition to being a masterful wordsmith, Minor was also a murderer, clinically insane - and locked up in Broadmoor, England's harshest asylum for criminal lunatics.
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 | | | | | Number of Reviews: 4 Average Rating:
Interesting
-- a reviewer, February 7, 2002
Also Recommended: Murder Machine, Jerry Capeci & Gene Mustain; Damaged Goods, Jim Henderson
WOW. Loved this book.
-- Ira Chandler, a computer software author, 47y/o., May 7, 2001
Winchester missed some significant information.
-- Mitchell Redman, a playwright, August 5, 2002
The Dictionary, who thought?
-- Ophelia, a forever fan of Mr. Winston's!, December 10, 2001
| | | | The Reader's Catalog
Part historical account of the making of the OED; part Agatha Christie detective novel, the first paperback edition of this best-seller soon to be made into a major motion picture by Luc Besson.
| |  | | | The Word On The Street
"The Professor and the Madman...is the linguistic detective story of the decade.... Winchester does a superb job of historical research that should entice readers even more interested in deeds than words." —William Safire
"elegant and scrupulous" —David Walton
I found The Professor and the Madman both enthralling and moving, in its brilliant reconstruction of a most improbable event: the major contributions made to the great Oxford English Dictionary by a deeply delusional, incarcerated "madman," and the development of a true friendship between him and the editor of the OED. One sees here the redemptive potential of work and love in even the most deeply, "hopelessly," psychotic." —Oliver Sacks, M.D.
Winchester has written a powerful account of the shifting foundations on which meaning is built, and the impoverishment of a language that could not describe or give peace to one of its makers. —Lithe Sebesta
| |  | | | - 1: The Dead of Night in Lambeth Marsh
- 2: The Man Who Taught Latin to Cattle
- 3: The Madness of War
- 4: Gathering Earth's Daughters
- 5: The Big Dictionary Conceived
- 6: The Scholar in Cell Block Two
- 7: Entering the Lists
- 8: Annulated, Art, Brick-Tea, Buckwheat
- 9: The Meeting of Minds
- 10: The Unkindest Cut
- 11: Then Only the Monuments
- Postscript
- Author's Note
- Acknowledgments
- Suggestions for Further Reading
| |  | | | Find similiar books in these subject areas:
All Topics > Reference > General
All Topics > Biographies & Memoirs > Historical > British > General
All Topics > Biographies & Memoirs > Historical > General
All Topics > Biographies & Memoirs > Historical > United States > General
All Topics > Biographies & Memoirs > Specific Groups > Special Needs
| | | | These specific items are very similiar:
The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary , by Simon Winchester
Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary , by Simon Winchester
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| | | | | | Keywords
Oxford English dictionary, Murray, James Augustus Henry,, Sir,, 1837-1915, Friends and associates, Lexicography, Biography / Autobiography, Historical - General, Historical - British, Historical - U.S., Specific Groups - Special Needs, Biography & Autobiography, Biography, History and criticism, Great Britain, United States, Civil War, 1861-1865, English language, Encyclopedias and dictionaries, Etymology, Veterans
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